Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 5, 1995                   TAG: 9501050066
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TAP FOUNDER LEAVING TOP POST

E. Cabell Brand, who 30 years ago founded Roanoke's Total Action Against Poverty, announced Wednesday that he would step down as the agency's chairman in September.

"I think it's a new day," Brand said. "I think we've got to have a new type of leadership succession. And you know, how many years should I do it?"

Brand, 71, said he would not seek re-election after his term as chairman of TAP's board of directors ends in September. He will, however, continue to work with the agency and see it through leadership transition. He has appointed a search committee to find a successor.

With public sentiment railing against poverty programs, government preaching welfare reform and with core state funding in jeopardy, Brand said he is not likely to stray far.

"I'm going to be here through this legislative session," he said. "I'm going to be here through this congressional session. And I'm going to continue to devote what time and energy I have.

"We must position ourselves to deal with the political climate of this country."

In the mid-1960s, the climate was ripe for anti-poverty efforts. President Lyndon Johnson had declared a national, "unconditional" war on poverty.

Brand - a Salem native and third-generation head of his family's shoe business - drummed up support in 1965 for creation of a local community action agency under the Economic Opportunity Act, backed by the Johnson administration. With some assistance, Brand raised enough support to apply for start-up funding through the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, .

Brand's agency adopted the acronym TAP, for Total Action Against Poverty, and took up headquarters in an old flour mill on Shenandoah Avenue. Thirty years later, settled into new offices occupied after a 1989 fire destroyed its original headquarters, TAP has not wavered from Brand's original mission.

TAP has 39 programs that in part tackle problems that Brand says are simply the results of having a civilized, democratic, free enterprise society - homelessness, hunger, lack of education, poor child health care.

"We do those things that the private sector has not been able to do and the government cannot," Brand said.

But he wonders, with the political climate shifting, what TAP should do as it approaches the next century.

"The culture of the voter today seems to be that not only do they not want to pay more taxes, but they don't want the governments to do as much as they've been doing," Brand said.

"The message has not gotten out to the people yet or even to many of our government officials and elected officials that what we do in our work here is extraordinarily cost-effective. And if we didn't do it, who would do it? How would it get done?"

Virginia Gov. George Allen's budget proposals would eliminate $2.1 million in Community Service Block Grant money for the state's 26 community action agencies, TAP included. The money is core funding, as agencies use it to leverage other money.

TAP used its $140,000 share of block grant money this year to bring in another $340,000 from other sources. That, combined with $650,000 in federal money, provides the base for TAP's $9 million budget.

Should the proposal pass, and with the Republican leadership in Congress announcing that it will cut programs borne of Johnson's Great Society, Brand said "TAP is either out of business ... or we have to figure out a way to replace this [money] locally."

Wednesday, Brand gathered the TAP board and a group of community leaders to brainstorm TAP's short- and long-term business strategy. His purpose was twofold: to discuss how TAP should position itself to deal with the political reality of the country and to ask for help in selecting his successor and ways to broaden the agency's community leadership.

Brand said TAP must overcome a perception that it is a federal handout program, equated with welfare.

"Our challenge is hopefully American people, local people, will realize what TAP has done here for 30 years is the most cost-effective way to deal with problems," he said.